So when I got home from work I had the tear jerking task of burying another hen. As I mentioned this morning, Cindy told me she found Ginger dead on the floor of the coop. I told Cindy just the other night as I put the birds to bed I was thinking about how painful it was when we lost Kristen last year.
Ironically just like Kristen, Ginger was the runt of the flock and got the most abuse from the other birds. Even more ironic is she made the same growling type noise that Kristen did and like Kristen, Ginger knew her name. Every night when I put them to bed Ginger would fight through getting pecked by the other birds to get next to me on the perch, just so I would pet her a few times. It was endearing.
So before I buried her I went inside to review the coop footage. Somewhere around 3 AM Ginger simply looked like she was adjusting her position, slipped, fell of the back of the perch and must have landed in a way that broke her fragile neck. We modified the perch in the past to avoid this exact scenario. It now sits no more than two feet high but it doesn’t really matter, if a bird falls off the wrong way they are going to be in trouble.
I buried her in the backyard by myself which is what I actually prefer. I’d rather be alone with my feelings of grief when we lose an animal which without fail invokes a strong emotional reaction. I dug the hole extra deep, hoping to avoid desecration of her body by predators. I covered it with a pile of palm fronds and other debris.
There is plenty of craziness going on in the world right now. Losing sweet Ginger was a gut punch on top of it all.
There hasn’t been much from me since late last week because I was mired in moving one of our branches. At this point I have all of the network services at the new location up and running but the computer equipment is not up because the company that is building/installing the counters is terrible. The counters were supposed to be finished two weeks ago and they still aren’t done. The last I heard was “hopefully” by Wednesday.
On Friday night I baited the live traps by the coop with peanut butter as I had seen movement around the run while I have been out there at night. On Saturday I saw one of the traps had snapped shut, what I didn’t expect to see was a baby palm rat hanging out the other side. Somehow he managed to get half of his body out of the tiny wire square which looked impossible. However he only got halfway. At first I assumed he was dead but when I approached he started to move. Great, this had now gone from a trapping to a rescue mission. I felt absolutely horrible as I carried the cage up to the garage as I supported the baby rats weight so it didn’t hurt him even more.
I knew I had to sacrifice the cage if I was going to get him out. I carefully cut a perimeter of the wire around him loose before I attempted to cut the square that he was actually stuck in. With the precision of a surgeon I made the cuts to the wire that he was stuck in, making sure I did not cut the baby in the process. I was able to get him free.
I carefully placed him in a bucket. He was not doing well. I had little doubt that during his struggles he caused all sorts of internal injuries. I brought him some chicken feed and a small dish of water and let him rest while I finished up the chicken work. When I was done I came back hoping to see him moving around some. He was still very stationary, but still alive.
I loaded him up in the truck and took him to my normal drop off point. I placed him intact on the paper towel under some brush with the food and water intact. I have minimal hope that he survived the day and I felt terrible that I had any part even inadvertently with his demise. The cage that I cut apart went in the trash. I still will continue to live trap but I need to make sure this scenario does not go down again.
On Saturday while I was doing my errands I saw another example of how the world is changing around us. I needed to stop at Home Depot for a couple items. They still did not have paper towels but they did have a four pack of blue shop towels which serve the same purpose in most situations, I was surprised no one else had grabbed them.
When I approached the store I noticed the garden center door was closed and instead there was a row of canopies leading to the front door. They were doing limited access to the store. By the cash registers they had tape on the floor to encourage customers to distance themselves properly. They also forced everyone to exit at the far end of the store to minimize the amount of face to face interaction that happens with two way traffic. It was bizarre but I appreciated their efforts. I did have my buff on the entire time I was in the store. I saw more masked people than the week before but still overall, maybe 5% had masks, everyone else was bare backing it.
I spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon working on the yard with an assist from Cindy. Although we are in the middle of dry season drought there were portions of the yard that were getting a bit gnarly looking. I should be good to go for another month at least.
Saturday night we plowed through the remaining episodes of Tiger King, the bizarre docu-series on Netflix that has been getting a lot of press. I never knew much about people that raised large exotic animals for a living. Now I do and I know that they are more than likely bat shit crazy.
On Sunday morning Cindy and I went for another ride on our mountain bikes for the second time in a week. It’s good exercise and just fun exploring the relatively quiet streets in our general area. We rolled around for between 7 and 8 miles. Mountain bikes are heavy with big fat tires so you feel it, even after that amount of distance.
Mid-afternoon I got out on my 16X for a quick ride to Ave Maria. Despite the relatively quick ride it was a long video as I brain dumped my personal thoughts and experiences with Covid 19 thus far.
If things in the world weren’t shitty enough, I got a call from Cindy this morning that one of our hens, sweet little Ginger was dead in the coop this morning. She has not been showing any signs of illness so my assumption at this point is she fell off the perch and broke her neck. I will check the security DVR to verify. Regardless, it breaks my heart. Having hens has been emotionally tough for us. We love them like regular pets but their fragility makes losing one a constant possibility.
I neglected to mention yesterday the big news of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics being postponed for a year due to Covid 19. The amount of prep and money that go into hosting the games is colossal, their postponement is indicative of what can be expected over upcoming weeks and months. Nobody is thinking the virus is going to go away anytime soon, except for President Trump of course. Last night he spewed more ridiculous statements like how he would love to “see churches packed on Easter”. I mean statements like that are pure insanity and go against not only medical advice but just plain old common sense. His ability to be out of touch with reality is certainly big league and perfect.
Locally there has been a lot of pressure on the Florida governor to issue a shelter in place order which he has been unwilling to do. The latest threat has been people from the greater NYC area fleeing the state in droves with a TON of them choosing Florida as their safe haven. Well of course this inevitably will be bringing more knowingly or unknowingly infected people into the area which will make a bad situation considerably worse. The governor issued an order that anyone arriving from the NYC area must self quarantine for 14 days. Of course this is practically unenforceable and many if not most people will ignore the order anyway.
There is also talk of shelter in place orders being issued on a county by county basis. Collier and Lee county are talking about doing exactly that. If it does happen I am not quite sure how it will impact my work directly, if at all. I am continuing to push forward dealing with all of the logistics of opening up a new office. My next couple days are going to be more or less non-stop.
Since the Covid 19 pandemic really took hold in the US, Donald has had to eat his words, repeatedly after he ignorantly downplayed the significance of the virus by an unimaginable degree. Since then there has been exactly one time I have seen Donald talking where he didn’t come off as the egotistical blowhard as we are all accustomed to, however after that one exception it has been back to all asshole, all the time.
What in the world happened to Mike Pence leading the Covid 19 response? Sure Pence thinks we can “ungay” people but at least he is a competent communicator. Instead the VP show lasted all of a day or two until evidently the President could not tolerate Pence getting center stage. So instead we are treated to Trump awkwardly reading pieces of paper in a manner that would make many third grade teachers cringe. Why is it that he refuses to use a teleprompter like every other president of the last 30 years? Is it because he can’t use a sharpie to write “chinese virus” on the screen? It’s incredible.
So anyway, watching Trump news conferences have been cringe worthy as he says things that you can see the medical professionals on stage physically react to, as they are so ridiculous. Repeatedly Anthony Fauci, viewed as one of the leaders in the medical community regarding the pandemic has had to walk back stupid and erroneous statements Trump has made. It has gotten so bad that Fauci said ‘I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down’ , speaking about the falsehoods Donald is telling the masses. It’s madness.
For me the madness and outrage climaxed yesterday when Trump said that he is thinking of lifting restrictions after the initial 15 day social distancing order expires next week. You could see the woman on stage who is another medical expert look absolutely sick as he said this. This idea has no basis on advice from ANY medical professional, this is solely about Donald being worried that a cratered economy will hurt his reelection chances and nothing else. He is so concerned with his self preservation that he is willing to throw the well being of millions of people into the wind, despite knowing the medical infrastructure is unable to handle a sharp spike in cases. He doesn’t give a fck, plain and simple.
I was thinking to myself how Trump supporters all suffer from the same mysterious ailment. It’s a condition where you are unable to recall anything the President has said previously. Instead, the moment he says something new that totally contradicts something he said previously, you instantly erase that prior action/statement from your memories forever. I don’t really understand how a functioning adult would be unable to remember past actions by the President but without a doubt the affliction is real, and frightening.
So the good news here is it is the state governors are the ones that make the call on social distancing or shelter in place orders, not President Big League. So even if he does something moronic and say “all is clear”, there are measures in place to ignore it. I can only hope somebody up there has the ability to drill some sense into the man but based on his track record, anyone with the balls to tell Trump he is making a mistake gets shown the door.
I have been doing some 3D printing with a new material, PETG on my Prusa printers. I have now twice had a print destroy the build surface when I tried to remove it. I was using Prusa filament so it seemed very odd that I would be having this problem. I posted a picture of the damaged build plates on the Prusa Users FB group and within seconds had my answer. Evidently when printing with PETG Prusa recommends you first coat the build surface with glue stick. Some in the group said spraying it with Windex accomplishes the same thing. This acts as a barrier to prevent the PETG from sticking like cement. They said this is explained in the Prusa manual, I guess I never got to that page.
Today marks the seven year anniversary of when Cindy and I started dating. It seems insane that much time has passed already. The seven years have been filled with so many memories I can’t even begin to sort through them all. We seen so many things, taken on so many challenges and accomplished much along the way. We make a good team.
It was not a great weekend as the world has descended deeper and deeper into Covid 19 panic and paranoia. After work Friday I returned to Sugden Park to run. The signs of the pandemic were all around with roped off beach areas, warning signs and people walking around outside with masks on. The temperature of 86 degrees was the warmest I have experienced since running at the park and it had an affect. I really struggled and felt absolutely spent by the end of 3 miles.
On Saturday I kept my routine more or less intact with doing chores followed by errands however neither Cindy or Elsa was with me. Cindy made a conscious decision to not go, Elsa, not so much. At Home Depot I had my buff on but I think I only saw two other people with any facial protection on. The store also seemed to have normal levels of traffic, I didn’t see any noticeable reduction in humanity. The main stuff I got was dirt and sod, once again for the chicken area. This was to patch several impromptu holes the birds decided to dig out.
I did get out on my EUC on Saturday afternoon where I reflected on the craziness we are surrounded by. It was a well needed break from some of the stresses I have been dealing with.
https://youtu.be/ysKzlJx3I4E
Saturday night we watched our Netflix rental, Rocketman, the movie about Elton John. It was half musical, half documentary which I didn’t mind too much. I am a big fan of Elton’s music so I have to give the movie at least a B.
On Sunday morning I caught another rodent. I had seen him popping his head out for a couple weeks but I hadn’t baited the live traps which I finally did Saturday night with peanut butter. On Sunday morning the small palm rat was inside the trap, looking sort of cute. As I cleaned the chicken coop I placed the trap up high out of the chickens reach and then gave him some pieces of chicken feed to snack on while I finished up. He seemed content eating the treat. Afterwards I loaded him up in the truck and dropped him off in the same deserted area as the others. I need to keep baiting the traps to stay ahead of the curve, just like Covid 19 self isolation.
My Sunday was pretty chill with minimal work. I got out on the wheel again in the afternoon, this time wanting to check out the beach area which was recently closed. I was surprised by the solid metal barriers blocking the entrance as well as a human guard. Ironically on the ride I saw the likely next target of the social distancing shutdown, boating. The boat launch I passed had so many trailers in it that they spilled out onto the roadway. The pictures emerging over the weekend of idiots packed like sardines onto boats partying it up will likely bring an end to that quickly. People just either are too stupid to get it or just don’t care enough to do anything about it. My mic wasn’t working for the ride so it is mostly just a visual experience.
I am back at work today as ordered. I am hoping I can force the final pieces together that are required to relocate the branch we are moving but it is getting harder and harder to keep the process moving as the world slowly grinds to a halt.
The craziness has continued and amplified over the last 24 hours. From a national level the biggest news was the California governor giving shelter in place orders to the entire state of 40 million+ people. Locally more restrictions came rushing in, including finally closing the beaches. The scenes of idiotic spring breakers throwing coronavirus cares to the wind got national traction and disdain. They officially closed our office to the public today so we enter day one of our new work reality with doors locked to the public. I am still pressing ahead with our office move project although doing so is requiring more and more force to do so as the systems around us are starting to slow down.
Yesterday I walked over to the campus gym even though I heard it was closed, just to verify it for myself. They had the hurricane shutters pulled down over the door, ensuring no entry was possible. To make do I walked up to the top of the parking garage and did a circuit of push ups and body weight squats that got me sucking some wind. Today I plan to spend my lunch hour riding my One Wheel Pint around, f it.
This weekend will likely have a whole lot of staying put in it as we watch the world devolve around us.
Every day it seems as if we are on a fast moving carousel as the news worsens and the restrictions tighten. Our office had started limiting the amount of customers allowed in the lobby to 10. If more than that showed up the rest had to wait outside. Now there is a very real chance the governor will close all state offices to the public altogether. The odd thing is if that happens, all of our employees are still expected to report to work, unless they are willing to burn their personal vacation or sick time to stay home. They also have the option to take unpaid leave which isn’t a very viable option for most people. If that happens it will be interesting to see how that plays out in reality since the sole focus of the majority of our staff is over the counter customer transactions. I question what exactly they would have these people do all day long. I personally always have stuff that demands my attention so it wouldn’t affect me much.
Last night I decided to fire up the live stream to talk about anything but of course Covid 19 was the big talking point. One of the things discussed was how difficult it is going to be to get the American public to buy into hard core and strict social distancing behavior. The biggest hurdle of all to me will be young people who are least likely to be severely impacted by the virus. In fact they may be carrying the virus and feel no symptoms whatsoever and that is where the danger lies.
If they don’t feel sick they will likely feel little to no need to alter their normal behavior patterns. However that shortsighted approach can result in many people that are at risk from the virus being infected from non-symptomatic carriers. EVERYONE needs to get on board with safe and sanitary practices without exception. Of course the reality is there are far too many people in the world that care about themselves and little else, especially in the United States. The end result will be more and more draconian restrictions to force people out of crowded environments but still, if individuals do not take personal responsibility for themselves we will still have a monumental problem.
If you are sheltering place and have two hours to kill feel free to watch.
Yesterday the Covid 19 pandemic had a direct impact on our little circle of existence. The gym that Cindy teaches classes at closed and the resort that Katie is a server at laid her off yesterday. This scenario is playing out all across the country and world for that matter as businesses shut down to try to lessen the spread of covid 19. American society is filled with people that literally live paycheck to paycheck. This situation could easily expand from weeks into months. Imagine the potential impact it has on so many people.
There is talk of the government cutting $1000 checks to help ease some of the immediate pain of the populace which I find myself having mixed emotions about. Yes I am happy that at least some sort of small band aid could be applied to the huge gushing wound of financial distress that is upon us. However I also find myself somewhat infuriated with the absolute hypocrisy when this goes down in the midst of the political circus we are enduring. All of these anti-entitlement, Bernie is a socialist individuals, suddenly shut their mouths when THEY now need a helping hand. The duplicity really angers me. Yes government can be clumsy, inefficient, and downright corrupt in many situations. However it is also the lifeline in times of crisis and is the primary tool behind recovery efforts. Government is what keeps society from falling apart at the seams, despite scenes of people beating each other up for toilet paper.
The only good thing I can see coming out of the covid 19 pandemic is it should fundamentally change the thinking and preparedness for outbreaks of widespread illness in the future, much like 911 changed the core fabric of national security practices, for better or for worse, depending on who you ask.
With nothing but talk of disease surrounding us I have found it is hard to not constantly be wondering if I am getting sick. Every little twinge of illness I feel seems amplified, wondering if it’s now my turn. I am sure it is mostly a pyschosomatic response. I am staying diligent with cleaning/sanitizing my hands after being in a public space and generally just being more conscious of what others around me are doing. I have said many times that I am not the type to panic and that continues to be the case but the way the world is unraveling around us can not be ignored.
So here is something non-covid 19 to make you laugh. So I have sold over 450 orders on my online 3d store. 99.9% of those transactions have been great. People like the stuff and the few issues I have had I normally can address with a smile. Well yesterday I was not smiling.
I had a model on my store that I was discontinuing for a newer version. I wanted to blow out the old ones so I did a 2 for 1 promo on the old model a few weeks ago. I sold the extras I had but forgot to update the store description. I then sold a model and sent the customer one instead of two, because I forgot about the promo. I get a rather normal email from him as follows.
Customer – Hello ..I purchased the 18xl stand…there are supposed to be two for the price of one…when will the other one arrive…
When I got the email I realized my mistake and sent him this response.
Me – Ah shit I forgot to change that text. I was doing that as I cleared out the old model. I will have to send you one of the new thicker style.
I sent this response very quickly however I then get blasted with the following.
That is the only reason I bought them… and also that is what it says….CLEARLY..YOU SEEM TO TALK AND ACT AS IF YOU DO HONEST BUSINESS….AND THIS PROBLEM ISN’T FIXED WITH CANDY…ALSO YOU MADE THAT OFFER… YOU PROBABLY CHANGED IT THIS MORNING.. BECAUSE WHEN I BOUGHT IT AND ALSO YESTERDAY IT STILL SAID TWO FOR ONE…AND THE THICKER MODEL IS ONLY TWO DOLLARS DIFFERENCE…AND ALL THAT DOESNT MATTER..WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT YOU WHERE PROMOTING…HOW ABOUT YOU BE HONEST AND DO THE RIGHT THING…AND SEND ME ANOTHER ONE…WHY BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I THOUGHT I WAS PAYING FOR…AN HONEST PERSON WOULD OF REALIZED THEIR SO CALLED MISTAKES AND WOULD SEND WHAT THE PERSON CLEARLY PAID FOR …I DIDN’T MISREAD..OR MISUNDERSTAND….AND THE RESPONSE OF AN HONEST PERSON WOULD BE..YES THAT IS WHAT IT SAID LET ME SEND YOU ANOTHER… I WOULD LIKE TO GET WHAT YOUR WEBSITE CLEARLY SAID TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE…WHEN WILL I BE RECEIVING THE OTHER ONE…ALONG WITH THE NEW TRACKING NUMBER
I was flabbergasted and initially just responded with “Wow….”
I then followed up with “I’m not sure why you felt the need to rant when I already acknowledged it was my mistake and I was going to send you another.”
I had no idea why this idiot felt the need to respond as he did. Perhaps he thought the $7.50 that I made by forgetting he was supposed to get two models was part of my grand scheme to rip off the EUC community. I had to take a breath and resist incinerating this guy with an angry email response. I simply sent him the tracking number for the additional model I was sending to which he asked when I was shipping it, which I ignored, just as I plan to ignore any further contacts by this moron.
The Covid 19 panic continued at an unabated pace with more bombshells dropping yesterday. The San Francisco area, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts are on “lockdown” where any non-essential members of the population are encouraged to basically stay home. The stock market had another crater day, dropping an unbelievable 3000 points, AFTER the fed slashed rates to ZERO. Last night Ohio cancelled their primary election which was scheduled for today. Florida has moved forward with their election which is today as well but I am sure turnout numbers will be microscopic.
I fear what we are seeing will in short order be applied nationwide. I already heard of some government offices in Florida closing shop as of yesterday. The gym Cindy teaches at is closing as of today and I think that trend will continue to grow, quickly. This is something new for all of us. For decades there have been warnings about pandemics and their potential for mass disruption of society. Whenever we get to the other side of this I can only hope there is a realignment of perspective where people realize that simply hoping/praying bad things don’t happen is not a plan.
Locally our county government declared a state of emergency. I’m not sure the impact that has on top of all of the other emergency declarations that have been landing in the last two days. When I try to wrap my head around the fiscal impact this is having around the world I am unable to do so. I once again count myself as fortunate not being in a situation where my employer could shut down, leaving me high and dry.
So the fear and panic surrounding the Covid19 outbreak has continued to intensify over the weekend with more and more cancellations and restrictions rolling in at a rapid pace. Hell even the county fair relented and closed up shop last night, almost 10 days early after pressure from state government. As part of my Saturday errands I made a pit stop at Sam’s to grab some Mexican Cokes. Just for shits and giggles I pushed the cart to the back corner of the store where paper products and bottled water are kept. The entire corner was completely barren, not a single item was to be found, amazing.
Luckily we are in a pretty solid position with ample paper towels and a whole house RO water system that makes bottled water unnecessary. The one thing we were getting a little low on was toilet paper. I was surprised when I was actually able to order some on Walmart.com which will be delivered to the house today or tomorrow. Outside of that we are in pretty good shape.
I tried to keep my routines pretty much on track despite the unraveling of society around us. I still drank DD coffee, I still went to Home Depot and Rural King, I just made sure to be conscious of what was going around me and made sure to grab the sanitizer after exiting the public spaces. On Saturday afternoon Deb came over to visit. We rode our PEVs over to the back entrance of the Fair, the closest we would come to attending it this year. She stayed for dinner. We drank some wine and watched The Post. Thanks to the wine I paid little attention to the actual movie but I guess it was B level ok.
On Sunday Deb came over again to ride. This time we were meeting Katie and the baby at Ave Maria. Cindy pushed DJ around in the stroller while Deb, Katie and I rolled around. I brought my Skydio 2 drone along to do it’s first test tracking me on an EUC. The drone for the most part did an amazing job, zipping around, over, and under obstacles in a mesmerizing fashion. The only negatives I have found so far are the battery life isn’t fantastic and the drone itself is incredibly loud, so much so that I felt badly flying anywhere near other human beings. We didn’t stay that long because it was hot as hell.
I spent several hours doing video editing during the afternoon which I also split with trying to fix a problem with one of my Prusa printers. Despite my efforts the problem remains. I ordered some parts yesterday to hopefully address the issue.
Time to buckle up for what is going to be one of the most unique times of my adulthood. Hopefully sanity can prevail in the end, but I wouldn’t count on it.
So when I got home from work I had the tear jerking task of burying another hen. As I mentioned this morning, Cindy told me she found Ginger dead on the floor of the coop. I told Cindy just the other night as I put the birds to bed I was thinking about how painful it was when we lost Kristen last year.
